The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is a loan translation from Serbo-Croatian. As early as the 1980s, the phrase‘etničko čišćenje’was coined by the Serbian side to describe the treatment of the Serbian minority living in Kosovo by Albanian nationalists. In the early 1990s, it was used by the Croats to describe the violent treatment of Croats in predominantly Serb-inhabited villages in connection with Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia. It was in this context that the term was first cited in its English translation in the Western media in 1991.

Subsequently, the translation ‘ethnic cleansing’ quickly became established in Western usage in connection with the expulsions and mass killings that occurred in the context of the wars and the collapse of the Yugoslav state. Since the 1990s, however, the term has also been applied to other historical and contemporary events and conceptualised in various ways.

The term was first used in the 1990s in the media and by political figures, and soon entered general usage.

However, the term failed to gain a foothold in case law. Whilst it was used in resolutions of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly, as well as in indictments and judgments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, it never constituted a separate charge in its own right. Practices that fall under this term may be prosecuted as war crimes or crimes against humanity. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ itself, however, as the United Nations notes, does not constitute a distinct legal offence: ‘Ethnic cleansing has not been recognised as an independent crime under international law.’^[1]

The term has, however, been adopted in various academic disciplines and conceptualised in a variety of ways. This applies to sociology and political science as well as to the historical sciences. The term has not become established in migration studies [see the article on migration].

Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian: etničko čišćenje; English: ethnic cleansing; French: nettoyage ethnique, purification ethnique; Polish: czystka etniczna; Czech: etnická čistka

‘Ethnic cleansing’ is generally defined as the systematically organised and long-term violent removal of an ethnically categorised group from a specific territory, with the aim of ethnically segregating that territory (‘homogenisation’).

With regard to the practices employed in this context, there are narrower and broader definitions:
a.) According to a narrower understanding of the term, ‘ethnic cleansing’ is limited to practices of forced migration. It can take various forms of forced migration, e.g. as induced flight, expulsion, deportation, resettlement or population exchange. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ differs in this respect from other forms of forced migration that do not affect people on the basis of their membership of an ethnically categorised group (e.g. resettlements for political, economic or climatic reasons). According to this narrower understanding, ‘ethnic cleansing’ is a means that differs from other violent instruments of ethnic homogenisation (e.g. genocide, forced assimilation)^[2], although fluid transitions are not uncommon.^[3]
b.) According to another interpretation, the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is used largely synonymously with ‘ethnic homogenisation’. Forced migration represents only one of several possible practices of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in this context. Genocide is also regarded as a further instrument under this interpretation.^[4] Forced assimilation or cultural oppression of people – where these are aimed at the destruction of the group or its collective identity – are also sometimes included in this category.^[5]

Both the narrower and the broader definitions of ‘ethnic cleansing’ are based on the category of ethnicity as a means of self-description and description by others of groups. Policies and practices involving the violent ‘purification’ of populations within a specific territory have, admittedly, been documented since antiquity. However, whilst these were for a long time mostly politically, culturally or religiously motivated, ‘ethnic cleansing’ is regarded as a specifically modern phenomenon, which only became possible with the emergence of ethnicity as a politically relevant category, particularly in the context of the collapse of empires since the 19th century and the rise of the nation-state ideal in Europe.

‘Ethnic cleansing’ aimed at ethnic homogenisation is therefore regarded as a ‘genuinely modern experience’^[6] or‘essentially modern’^[7] and, in particular, as typical of the 20th century, because it was only then that modern technical means of ‘social engineering’ made it possible to systematically plan and carry out ‘ethnic engineering’ on a large scale. The 20th century is therefore occasionally referred to as the ‘age’ or ‘century of ethnic cleansing’.^[8]

The use of extreme violence and the connection with wartime and/or post-war situations – which make ethnic cleansing possible, facilitate it or make it appear necessary – are generally regarded as characteristic of ‘ethnic cleansing’. In this sense, flight and expulsion of Germans at the end of and in the aftermath of the Second World War is regarded by proponents of the concept as the classic – and, moreover, the most extensive – instance of ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the 20th century.

Ever since the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ first came into use, it and the concepts associated with it have been the subject of controversy.

The term is repeatedly criticised as a euphemistic term used by perpetrators, the use of which is said to reproduce the dehumanising rhetoric of those who perpetrate violence. As early as 1992, the term was voted ‘Word of the Year’ in this sense by the Society for the German Language, on the grounds that it was a euphemistic ‘propaganda formula’.^[9]

Amongst the term’s proponents, various conceptual aspects are the subject of heated debate, such as its application to regions outside Europe, the significance of wars, or the role of different political systems. Proponents of a narrower definition of ‘ethnic cleansing’ as forced migration also criticise an over-extension of the term and a lack of precision in a broader understanding as ethnic homogenisation, which can range from forced assimilation to genocide.^[10]

Criticism is directed in particular at the blurred distinction from the concept of genocide, which, in various conceptual frameworks, is regarded either as strictly distinct, as a possible extension, or as a specific form of ‘ethnic cleansing’. In contemporary analysis in particular, it is often criticised that the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is used for events that in fact constitute genocide. This is said to marginalise and trivialise acts of genocide, with the result that legal, political or military intervention does not appear equally necessary or urgent.^[11]

In the social sciences, the varying and ambiguous definitions of the term have led to criticism of a general ‘conceptual confusion’, which hinders effective comparative analysis of different events. It is therefore sometimes recommended here that the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ be abandoned entirely and replaced with more precisely defined and clearly delineated terms (e.g. expulsion, massacre, forced assimilation).^[12]

For similar reasons, the term is also controversial from a historical perspective. Here, too, a warning is issued against conflating forced migrations with genocides – events that must be assessed as fundamentally different – for instance, when the flight and expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe are treated as ‘ethnic cleansing’ alongside acts of genocide.^[13] Furthermore, when the flight and expulsion of Germans in the wake of the Second World War are interpreted as ‘ethnic cleansing’, criticism is levelled at a one-sided focus on the supposed aim of ethnic ‘homogenisation’ on the part of the actors involved. There is a danger here that German wartime and occupation policies will be viewed merely as a ‘pretext’^[14] for a long-term policy of ethnic segregation, whilst the immediate real-political and causal context is lost from view.^[15]

• Andrew Bell-Fialkoff: Ethnic Cleansing. New York 1996.
• Rony Blum; Gregory H. Stanton; Shira Sagi; Elihu D. Richter: ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Bleaches the Atrocities of Genocide. In: European Journal of Public Health 18 (2008), No. 2, pp. 204–209.
• Detlef Brandes: The Century of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’. Forced Resettlements in
• Europe in the 20th Century. In: Ralph Melville; Jiří Pešek; Claus Scharf (eds.): Forced Migrations in Central and Eastern Europe. International Law – Concepts – Practices (1838–1950). Mainz 2007, pp. 3–18.
• Ulf Brunnbauer; Michael G. Esch: Introduction. Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central and South-Eastern Europe in the 20th Century. In: Ibid.; Holm Sundhausen (ed.): The Power of Definition, Utopia, Retribution. Ethnic Cleansing in 20th-Century Eastern Europe. Berlin 2006, pp. 7–20.
• Zeynep H. Bulutgil: The Roots of Ethnic Cleansing in Europe. New York 2016.
• Michael G. Esch: On the Historical Context of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ and Genocide. In: Mathias Beer; Dietrich Beyrau; Cornelia Rauh (eds.): Being German as a Borderline Experience. Minority Policy in Europe between 1914 and 1950. Essen 2009, pp. 15–34.
• Meghan M. Garrity: ‘Ethnic Cleansing’: An Analysis of Conceptual and Empirical Ambiguity. In: Political Science Quarterly 138 (2023), No. 4, pp. 469–489.
• Jennifer Kirby-McLemore: Settling the Genocide v. Ethnic Cleansing Debate: Ending Misuse of the Euphemism ‘Ethnic Cleansing’. In: Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 50 (2022), No. 2, pp. 109–137.
• Hans Lemberg: ‘Ethnic Cleansing’: A Means of Resolving Nationality Problems? In: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (1992), No. 46, pp. 27–38.
• Benjamin David Lieberman: *Terrible Fate. Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe*. Chicago 2006.
• Michael Mann: The Dark Side of Democracy. A Theory of Ethnic Cleansing. Hamburg 2019 (orig. Cambridge 2005).
• Norman M. Naimark: ‘Flaming Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in the 20th Century’. Munich 2004 (orig. Harvard 2001).
• Dražen Petrović: ‘Ethnic Cleansing – An Attempt at Methodology’. In: European Journal for International Law 5 (1994), pp. 342–359.
• Karl Schlögel: ‘Ethnic Cleansing as an Invention of the Twentieth Century: An Account of Expulsions in Europe’. In: Rainer Münz; Rainer Ohliger (eds.): Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants. Germany, Israel and Post-Soviet Successor States in Comparative Perspective. London–Portland 2003, pp. 98–111.
• Michael Schwartz: Ethnic ‘Cleansing’ in the Modern Era. Global Interactions between Nationalist and Racist Policies of Violence in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Munich 2013.
• Holm Sundhausen: Ethnic Cleansing. In: Ibid.; Detlef Brandes; Stefan Troebst (eds.): Encyclopaedia of Expulsions. Deportation, Forced Resettlement and Ethnic Cleansing in 20th-Century Europe. Vienna–Cologne–Weimar 2010, pp. 229–234.
• Philipp Ther: The Dark Side of Nation States. ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ in Modern Europe. Göttingen 2011.
• Philipp Ther: A Century of Displacement. The Causes of Ethnic Cleansing in the 20th Century. In: Ralph Melville; Jiří Pešek; Claus Scharf (eds.): Forced Migrations in Central and Eastern Europe. International Law – Concepts – Practices (1838–1950). Mainz 2007, pp. 19–38.

[1] United Nations. Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect: Definitions of Genocide and Related Crimes: Ethnic Cleansing (10 June 2024). URL: www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition (accessed 21 April 2026).

[2] This narrower definition is advocated, amongst others, by Bell-Fialkoff: Ethnic Cleansing; Brandes: Das Jahrhundert; Lemberg: ‘Ethnische Säuberungen’; Schlögel: Ethnic Cleansing; Ther: Die dunkle Seite.

[3] Naimark’s position is ambiguous in *Flammender Haß*; on the one hand, he emphasises the differences between ‘ethnic cleansing’ and genocide (pp. 11ff.), but on the other hand also examines generally recognised cases of genocide as ‘ethnic cleansing’ (e.g. the Armenian genocide).

[4] See, amongst others, Bulutgil: *The Roots*; Brunnbauer/Esch: Introduction; Esch: Contextualisation; Lieberman: Terrible Fate; Mann: The Dark Side; Petrovic: Ethnic Cleansing; Schwartz: Ethnic ‘Cleansing’; Sundhausen: Ethnic Cleansing.

[5] See, for example, Brunnbauer/Esch: Introduction; Lieberman: Terrible Fate; Mann: The Dark Side; Petrovic: Ethnic Cleansing; Sundhausen: Ethnic Cleansing.

[6] Naimark: ‘Flammender Haß’, p. 15

[7] Mann: The Dark Side, p. 2.

[8] Ther: A Century, p. 19; Brandes: The Century.

[9] www.unwortdesjahres.net/unwort/das-unwort-seit-1991/1991-1999/ (23 April 2026).

[10] See, for example, Ther, The Dark Side, p. 12.

[11] Blum/Stanton/Sagi/Richter: ‘Ethnic Cleansing’; Kirby-McLemore: Settling the Genocide; and, as previously noted, Petrovic: Ethnic Cleansing, p. 359.

[12] Garrity, “Ethnic Cleansing”, p. 473.

[13] Niven, Bill: *Reactive Memory: The Holocaust and the Flight and Expulsion of Germans*. In: Marc Silberman; Florence Vatan (eds.): *Memory and Postwar Memorials. Confronting the Violence of the Past*. Basingstoke 2013, pp. 51–70, here p. 65; Hubert Orlowski: *Flight and Expulsion. Faces of Deprivation*. In: Hans Henning Hahn; Robert Traba (eds.): German-Polish Sites of Remembrance. Vol. 1. Paderborn 2015, pp. 445–471, here p. 457.

[14] See Naimark, *Flammender Haß*, p. 172.

[15] See, for example, Pertti Ahonen: ‘On Forced Migrations: Transnational Realities and National Narratives in Post-1945 (West) Germany’. In: *German History* 32 (2014), pp. 599–614, here p. 611; Eva Hahn; Hans Henning Hahn: The Expulsion in German Memory. Legends, Myths, History, Paderborn et al. 2010, pp. 104, 111; Robert Traba; Robert Żurek: ‘Expulsion’ or ‘Forced Resettlement’? The German–Polish Debate over Terminology, Memory and the Purpose of Remembrance Policy. In: Christoph Koch (ed.): Was the ‘Expulsion’ Unjust? The resettlement decisions of the Potsdam Agreement and their implementation in their context of international law and history, Frankfurt am Main 2015, pp. 321–372, here p. 357.

Stephan Scholz: Ethnic Cleansing. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2026. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32827 (accessed 10 September 2026).